Liberal face

When she became the worlds first Muslim woman Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto also became a symbol for the youth.

At Benazirs ancestral

Disbelief. Intense grief. Anger. Despair. More grief. It hits you in waves. We are a nation in mourning. Benazir Bhutto is no more. It is a nightmare you wish you could wake up from. Somehow rewind the last few minutes as seen on our television screens, so that she does not step into that four-wheel drive, does not emerge from its sunroof to smile and wave at the jubilant throng around her. Somehow undo that last fatal mistake.

The government now claims that she died from hitting her head against the sunroof. This counters the eyewitness accounts of two to four rounds of gunfire, one of which struck Benazir Bhutto on the head. She slumped between two party stalwarts, Amin Fahim and Naheed Khan, who initially did not realise what had happened. Within seconds, a bomb exploded by the vehicle, claiming 20 lives. Amin Fahim and Naheed Khan were unhurt but realised that their party leader was profusely bleeding, unmoving and soundless.

The sunroof theory obviously attempts to deflect the fingers that are pointed at the government for failing to provide adequate security to the twice-elected former Prime Minister. Benazir Bhuttos party had outlined various steps for her security, which the government basically ignored. There was no police detail visible as Benazir Bhutto climbed down from the stage where she had just addressed a rally in Rawalpindi and got into the vehicle.

Whatever the case, Benazir Bhutto is dead. Her death, unbelievable and shocking as it is, has left a huge vacuum in Pakistani politics at a juncture where her presence was vital to the transition towards democracy. The forthcoming elections on January 8 are now in doubt, despite the pressure from the Americans to hold them on time or in the near future. Benazir Bhuttos home province, Sindh, and its capital city, Karachi, have been virtually shut down, roads blockaded, offices and petrol pumps shut. There are food and fuel shortages. Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) workers initially expressed their rage on the streets by burning tyres, but the protests have been overtaken by various dubious elements engaged in looting and the burning of public and private property.

The government also claims that Al Qaeda carried out the attack, countering the popular belief that the secret agencies were involved. To support its allegation, the government has produced proof in the form of a telephone conversation between someone it says is an anonymous maulana and Baitullah Mehsud, the self-proclaimed head of the Taliban in Pakistan. It is interesting that they can intercept incriminating telephone conversations but those engaged in such conversations continue to roam free. The allegation omits the historic linkage between these agencies and the Taliban or Al Qaeda that many believe is still maintained in some form despite the governments official distancing from the Taliban and other groups with a similar ideology.

Almost three decades ago, Washington pressured another military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, then heading Pakistan as a frontline state against the war on communism, to steer the country back towards democracy. At least nominally. Zia obliged by holding sham party-less elections in 1985, which brought into power a Sindhi Prime Minister, Mohammad Khan Junejo, who was expected to be subservient and pliant. Zia also allowed Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan and engage in politics. Her triumphal return in April 1986 drew mammoth crowds at rallies all over the country. There was no concept of suicide bombings then, no assassination threats.

The eruption of popular support for democratic politics, symbolised by the young Benazir, made it clear that the General would have to keep his famous elections in 90 days promise the people of Pakistan had been hearing for nearly a decade.

In August 1988, Gen. Zia was dead in a mid-air explosion in his C-130 plane that killed all those on board, including the American Ambassador, Arnold Raphael. Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch has termed the assassination of Benazir Bhutto the most significant political event to happen in Pakistan since the death of General Zia.

Zia must have been mourned by those who loved him and by those whom he had propelled into power, like Nawaz Sharif and other previous political non-entities. But his death was also openly celebrated by many in Pakistan. It is a terrible thing to be happy at the death of another human being, but such was the level of resentment Zia had aroused with his repressive policies and his handing over of Pakistan to the forces of religious extremism, that many sweetshops were sold out at the time.

Benazir Bhuttos assassination, on the other hand, has plunged the entire country into mourning. Even her fiercest critics and bitterest enemies have been momentarily silenced. There are no sweets being handed out, despite the alleged congratulatory phone call between those who planned her death. Al Qaeda has since denied responsibility, saying that it does not target women and children.

The murder aroused revulsion and horror at many levels. Benazir was a woman, a wife, and a mother. She was a courageous politician who lived by her convictions and never stooped to the level of the opponents who cast vicious personal aspersions at her. Writing in the daily Dawn on December 28, the day of her funeral, the columnist Kamran Shafi shares an anecdote that reveals her principled stand on such matters. As Press Information Officer, he wanted Benazir Bhutto, then in her first term as Prime Minister, to sanction funds to counter the lifafas (bribes) that the opposition was using to influence the more purchasable parts of our press. She flatly refused. Let them do what they want; we will not do the wrong thing.

When she became the worlds first Muslim woman Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto also became a symbol for the youth. Now, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, a Pakistani schoolgirl could hold her head up and reply: A Prime Minister.

Of course, Benazir was no ordinary Pakistani woman. She was the daughter of an elected Prime Minister, hailing from a powerful and wealthy feudal family. Within these identities, there were multiple contradictions starting with her identity as a woman. At the end of the day she was the best hope for democracy in Pakistan. She represented the aspirations of millions for liberal politics in the country.

It is hard to transcend the feeling of that hope having been completely extinguished, but this must somehow be done if Pakistan is to survive.

Beena Sarwar is a freelance journalist and documentary film-maker based in Karachi.